The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

211. Sir Hilary Synnott told the Inquiry:

“One of my key requests was at the end of August when I asked for, I think,

37 additional expert staff, not generalists but experts, and 20 armoured vehicles.

I was sent the record of the Ad Hoc Ministerial Committee [on 28 August], I think

within a day of this, and it was recorded there that Synnott should be provided

with everything he thought was necessary. That, to my mind, clearly came from

No.10 and that was the pattern throughout. The difficulty, however, was turning

that political imperative into reality … I put in this bid at the end of August. The task

was ultimately given to DFID. I understood that in October they put out a trawl with

a deadline of, I think, the end of October for recruitment. By 1 January, 18 out of

37 had arrived.” 146

212. Mr Jim Drummond, DFID Iraq Director from September 2003 to December 2004,

described DFID’s role to the Inquiry:

“Sir Hilary Synnott, working with us, identified, I think it was 37 posts that he wanted

to have filled, and we agreed to do that.

“We asked the Crown Agents to source those people from the market, because

we didn’t at that stage across government have a pool of people that could easily

be called upon, although the Iraq Planning Unit based in the Foreign Office had

managed to get quite a number of civil servants from Treasury, DFID and across

government into the CPA in the early days. But for Basra we were looking really to

fund from contractors in the market, partly because we were looking for specialist

skills in project implementation that we don’t necessarily have full‑time in DFID.” 147

213. Mr Drummond explained that some of the jobs were advertised across DFID, but

“mostly they were people who came from the market”. People had arrived in slightly

greater numbers after Christmas because those selected in December had asked for

their contracts to start on 1 January.

214. During his farewell meeting with Mr Straw on 11 February 2004, Sir Hilary Synnott

said he had been frustrated at the length of time it had taken the FCO to deploy people

and provide secure communications. The FCO response had compared unfavourably

with that of other departments.148

215. Sir Hilary told the Inquiry that Whitehall departments’ interpretation of their duty

of care towards civilian personnel had been an obstacle to the recruitment of the people

he needed:

“I raised it with the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and we both of us thought that it

was a bit odd that our men and women in the armed forces could be exposed to risk.

But … we could not risk injury or death to civilians …

146 Public hearing, 9 December 2009, page 45.

147 Public hearing, 17 December 2009, pages 10‑12.

148 Minute Owen to PS/PUS [FCO], 12 February 2004, ‘FCO Response to Iraq’.

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